Flyin' Miata Mazda MX-5 V8

We'd normally be dead-set against this sort of thing. For around $36,000, Colorado-based Mazda tuner Flyin' Miata (FM) will rip out the four-cylinder engine of a first-, second-, or third-generation Miata and install a 480-hp Chevrolet V8. While awesome, the act raises the question: Is the resulting Frankencar still a Miata?

It's a question worth asking, because the Mazda is almost perfect. The car's genius lies in the way it connects the driver to the road: It's exhilarating at legal speeds yet swift when wheeled by the skilled. Horsepower was never the point.

Still, stuffing big American power into a small, light body isn't new. Carroll Shelby's Cobra popularized the idea in the early Sixties, but the concept has been around as long as hot rodders have had wrenches. When we heard that Flyin' Miata, a shop full of folks who totally "get" the car, was building V8 roadsters, we decided to pull our heads out of the sand and check out the swap.

I drove an FM V8 Miata on Angeles Crest Highway, one of the countless curved two-lanes that snake along the ridges north of Los Angeles. Keith Tanner, FM's jack-of-all-trades engineering guru, was in the passenger seat, doing his best to not appear scared.

From behind the wheel, this car looks and smells like one of the countless Mazdas I've driven over the years, yet a few things are markedly different. Forget, for a moment, the Camaro soundtrack emanating from the pipes. The oddest part is how ferociously this thing catapults out of corners. It's unnerving.

The engine used here, a 6.2-liter GM LS3 V8 rated at 480 hp, is saddled with just 2660 pounds. For perspective, the V10-powered SRT Viper, a car thoroughly overrun with motor, weighs about 3300 pounds and produces 640 hp. In power-to-weight terms, the V8 Miata is only a tick behind. The Viper, however, has been built from scratch to handle that kind of grunt; it uses rear tires roughly the size of five-gallon buckets. The Miata's are puny by comparison—smaller by about a third.

Size isn't everything with tires, but it's at the top of the list when it comes to traction. You expect a V8 Miata to vaporize its rear rubber if you so much as look at the right pedal. Despite the highway's long straights, there was rarely room for more than a moment of full throttle before I had to stand on the brakes and arc into the next bend. With each turn, I got on the power a little earlier, always waiting for that moment when the engine overcame the available grip, the back end stepped out uncontrollably, and whoops! I flew off the road to a terrible doom.

Sound paranoid? When you've driven as many half-baked tuner cars as I have, you get a little wary. To their credit, the Flyin' Miata crew didn't just drop in an engine, they adjusted everything else on the car to cope. The gearbox is a six-speed Tremec T56 borrowed from an older Camaro; it routes power to the same limited-slip rear differential used in the Cadillac CTS-V. The tires are Nitto NT01s, essentially street-capable racing slicks, and they're paired with a stiffer, lower suspension. The package, which includes parts and labor but requires that you supply a Miata (the second-gen car, as shown here, is probably the best bet from a cost and availability standpoint), starts at $35,670. If you're DIY handy and know your way around Craigslist, Tanner estimates you could make your own for as little as $12,000.

After an hour in the canyons, I was considering hacking up my own Miata. Other than the heat pouring off the transmission tunnel, a byproduct of the tightly packaged exhaust, there's little evidence that FM's car isn't factory-made. The shifter and hydraulic clutch are only slightly stiffer than the original units, the gauges all work, and the power steering retains most of the Miata's brilliant clarity.

And my God, it moves. Since first gear is all but useless—anything more than half throttle just smokes the tires—the quickest sprints start in second. So hampered, the tiny car rockets to 60 mph in 3.8 seconds.

That leads us back to the question: Just what is it? Like the AC Ace that became the Cobra when Shelby was through with it, this thing is no longer a Miata. It's more like a pint-sized Viper. Flyin' Miata is calling it Habu, a Japanese word for a type of small venomous snake. For now, that'll do.

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